Tim Colebatch is The Age's economic editor.

People born overseas have taken almost three-quarters of the net growth in full-time jobs in Australia in the past two years, even though they make up just 31 per cent of the adult population.

Analysis of the Bureau of Statistics jobs data reveals that, comparing the six months to April with the same months two years earlier, Australia gained just 131,000 more full-time jobs - one new full-time job for every five new people.

But in net terms, people born overseas gained 97,000 more full-time jobs, while Australian-born people gained only 34,000. The economy created only one new full-time job for every 10 more Australian-born people aged 15 and over.

The figures raise doubts about employers' claims that they must hire workers from overseas because Australians are not available to do the jobs.

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Rather, they suggest that the record inflow of skilled migrants - both permanent and temporary - into a weak labour market is taking jobs that would otherwise have gone to people who are already here.

In April alone, overseas-born people who had arrived in Australia since the start of 2011 held 174,000 full-time jobs. That is more than the total number of full-time jobs created in that time.

The contrast was most acute in Victoria, where the new arrivals gained 41,400 full-time jobs at a time when full-time jobs were shrinking.

Despite two years of weak jobs growth, in which almost 100,000 more people have become unemployed, and a similar number drop out of the workforce, the federal government is maintaining its skilled migration program at close to record levels.

Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor announced last month that Australia would aim to recruit 128,550 skilled migrants in 2013-14, only 700 fewer than the present level.

The number of temporary workers arriving on section 457 visas to fill jobs that employers claim Australians are unwilling or unable to take continues to grow at record levels, although it appears to be peaking.

Section 457 visas, which are issued at employers' request, grew from 48,080 in 2010-11 to 68,310 in 2011-12. They appear set to overtake that in 2012-13, with 56,950 visas issued by the end of April.

While many of these temporary workers later return home, many do not. In the past three years almost 120,000 section 457 visa holders have converted their visa into permanent residency.

On top of that, the number of workers on the visa has swollen from 70,000 to 109,000 in just two years, growing by 3200 in April alone.

Australian-born workers have dominated growth in one area: part-time jobs, where they have taken 102,000 of the net increase of 113,000 in the past two years.

But in that time, three in every four new jobs gained by Australian-born people have been part-time - whereas just one in four unemployed people are seeking part-time work.